(Bloomberg) — Oil edged lower in choppy trading as investors weighed President Donald Trump\u2019s newest threat to resume strikes on Iran, a pledge the US leader has made repeatedly before backing off since a truce was agreed to in early April.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg<\/p>\n
West Texas Intermediate dropped toward $104 a barrel. Trump said on Tuesday that if Iran didn\u2019t agree to US peace terms, \u201cwe may have to give them another big hit.\u201d The threat came less than a day after he said he had just called off an attack. It\u2019s a familiar refrain for traders navigating a 12th week of war-driven volatility, with many reluctant to add to long positions without firmer evidence that fighting will resume.<\/p>\n
The commodity declined further on news that NATO is discussing the possibility of helping ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz if the vital energy shipping route isn\u2019t reopened by early July.<\/p>\n
Investors have increasingly priced in a closure lasting beyond July, according to a Goldman Sachs poll earlier this month, meaning a NATO-led effort to guide ships through the chokepoint could bring supply back to market faster than expected.<\/p>\n
Oil has rallied recently on uncertainty about the latest round of peace talks, and the possibility that the near-total closure of Hormuz will choke off Persian Gulf energy supplies for longer. The conflict has roiled markets and caused global energy prices and inflation to surge. Brent, the global benchmark, is up more than 50% since the US and Israel launched the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese hot air verbal interventions from Trump used to have a heavy bearish impact on prices, but they now seem to have less and less effect unless they are backed by reality,\u201d said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst at SEB AB. \u201cAs far as we can see there has been no real progress in the negotiations between the US and Iran, with both sides still standing by their previous demands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran has so far refused to bow to Trump\u2019s demands and has kept shipping through Hormuz largely blocked.<\/p>\n
Adding to the pressure on the waterway, a US naval blockade of Iranian ports has left Iran\u2019s Kharg Island oil terminal idle for at least 10 days. That has cut off Tehran\u2019s petroleum revenues and withdrawing millions of barrels from the market. That\u2019s a reversal for the Islamic Republic, which had been the strait\u2019s dominant crude exporter after barring other nations\u2019 vessels.<\/p>\n
Oil pared losses ahead of settlement after the Wall Street Journal reported that the US seized an Iran-linked ship, while peace talks yielded little progress, according to regional mediators and US officials familiar.<\/p>\n
Earlier there were reports of explosions on Iran\u2019s Qeshm Island, one of the areas ships have to pass when crossing Hormuz. The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that the blasts were the result of neutralizing unexploded munitions.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the US issued a new waiver allowing the sale of Russian crude oil and petroleum products that are already loaded on tankers, days after the previous one lapsed. Trump also said he may consider initiatives outside of a federal gas tax suspension to keep pump prices lower.<\/p>\n
Separately, White House officials are holding firm against restricting oil exports even as domestic stockpiles dwindle.<\/p>\n
–With assistance from Will Kubzansky.<\/p>\n
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p>\n
\u00a92026 Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Bloomberg) — Oil edged lower in choppy trading as investors weighed President Donald Trump\u2019s newest threat to resume…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4536,45,49,48,1376,5897,172000],"class_list":["post-680482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bloomberg","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}